Tuesday, February 04, 2014

PSH

There has been so much bandying about the tragic end to the
heroin user and wonderful actor-artist, PSHoffman.

Most of it has been kind and compassionate.

Some people are terrified and have blamed him for his own demise. “How could he
do that to his three children?”

How could he not?

What happened happened.

I was shocked about this news. I had no idea he even had a
drug problem. Maybe I was too drunk/high to notice?

Strangely, I have been able to “abuse” alcohol and weed at
weekend levels that in other cultures would be considered just a tame Wednesday
evening. It’s hard to know the extent of the damage you are doing. Luckily for
me, I have a very sensitive, weak system, so there is just a limit to what I
can handle and I just stop. For days at a time. For weeks. Sometimes years.
Depending on the bender.

At the root of whatever it is that keeps me from going off
the deep end, chemically, is I am terrified of illness and refuse to destroy
myself (even though, at times, I do believe that others would be happy with my
disappearance). My self preservation is stronger than my desire to numb out.

The primal horror in reaction to the death of this wonderful
actor is that we all have a very questionable impulse. To self-obliterate. We
all, while standing on a tall bridge, feel the desire to jump over the divide
into the nothingness. We all want to escape this fucking veil of tears. Those
of us who are high functioning, or medium functioning, or functioning within
the legal limits of our house pants while sitting on a stained couch, find it
terrifying that we could be so self destructive. Not to mention what we are
doing to others by self immolation. But we all have some kind of wish to
disappear. Even if only occasionally. Certainly, we all want pleasure, even if
that pleasure is nothing more than a lack of pain.

There is much talk about brain chemistry. The chemistry of
addiction. All that. I believe we will fully understand the chemistry of this
whole addiction mess more fully in decades to come. But then, I do believe we
may use our scientific ability to genetically engineer human beings who will
then not have problems with addiction.

However, I fear the world will be less colorful.

I sort of know, or have the sinking feeling, that my
creativity—which is really a form of reaching for transcendence—comes from the
same area as my need to obliterate my negative feelings and increase my warm
feelings. This is not dissimilar to drinking gallons of cheap beer at the Hofbräuhaus
am Platzl in Munich (and why didn’t Duncan ever call me? We
got along so well that evening!) or like when I am stoned on some of the good
weed you can simply have delivered to your door, anywhere in livable U.S.A., and use
it to enhance ye ol’ sex life or dry pot roast.

Of course, there are limits. For me. But I completely
understand that old saw you hear in 12 step rooms, “One is too much and a
thousand never enough.” The desire, “To
find God at the bottom of a bottle.”
Pascal’s “God Shaped Hole,” Etc. There is a need FOR SOMETHING ELSE. And
maybe for some people this need is filled while watching sun motes dance around
their sweet children’s heads who love to eat noodles with their hands. But many
people don’t have the luxury…of noodles. More abstract things can take over.

Death always lurks. For all of us. Horrible, horrible death.
Yet on some level we crave death because for one thing, life can be too hard or
too boring and also, it’s a curious place, death. Like, what the hell is it?
And if we are going there, anyway, wouldn’t it make sense to get there sooner?
Who likes to wait for anything?

Life is better, we say. But we don’t really know that. I
have come out of anesthesia three times—each experience leaving me thinking,
“Damn, if death is that kind of nothingness, why on earth is anyone afraid of
it? I’ve never felt more well rested!” (And on my tombstone, please write, “My
sinuses have never felt better”)

I believe the righteous indignation that people hold against
addicts is a projection of the fear of their own death and the death of the
ones that they love. People hate the idea of no longer existing. But why? They
did not exist for all those long years before they were born. Are they mad
about that, too? And does someone have to pay for this most great probability
that we are not immortal?

I did not know PSHoffman. I know some people who did. They
are all saddened. Sad. Not mad. Just sad. Anyone who did not know him who is
angry at his action is projecting a fear onto him. Anger will not change
anything here.

One day, we may figure out how to handle ourselves better on
this earth, with all its pitfalls and problems and aggressions and miseries.
But until then, I think we are going to drink and do drugs. And probably after
that, too. It’s tricky.

Rest in Peace, Philip. You gave more than most. Sorry you’re
gone. It’s sad for all of us. Living, unlike being dead, is often sad.

1 comment:

Well said my friend. I must admit my judginess comes from feeling that a creative person dying is a sadder than say, someone who lacerated nothing but misery. I am loathe to admit this, but I think thats why PSH's death, Amy Winehouse, Heath Ledger, Marilyn Monroe and Jimmy Dean effects people so intensely. It not only reminds us of our own mortality, but the approaching feeling that I have SO MUCH to do and these people…had they lived. What work would they have created? We'll never know.